


Little Slices of Death

by MadamSeshat



Category: Beetlejuice (1988), Beetlejuice (Cartoon 1989), Beetlejuice - All Media Types, Beetlejuice - Perfect/Brown & King
Genre: Animal Death, Child Death, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-22
Updated: 2020-05-22
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:34:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24327358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MadamSeshat/pseuds/MadamSeshat
Summary: 'There was a strange man in the cemetery. He wore a stripy suit and had wild hair and moss growing over his exposed face and neck. He told her that she hadn’t been fast enough with the cat she’d tried to create a door for today. He told her he could help her… if she just said his name'Lydia Deetz had a darkness within her from a young age, and that darkness was nurtured by a certain poltergeist that met her in the cemetary when she was just 4 years old
Relationships: Beetlejuice/Lydia Deetz
Comments: 5
Kudos: 31





	Little Slices of Death

**Author's Note:**

> So... don't know why this came to me when watching the musical for the first time, but it did! I just really liked the idea of a much darker Lydia and Beetlejuice being fascinated by it. I do plan for this to be a Beetlebabes fic, though obviously not when Lydia is still a little kid!
> 
> I discovered Beetlejuice initially through the musical, and have now watched the film and have started watching some of the cartoon! So expect elements of all three of those to be present, though I'll probably draw most heavily from the first since the soundtrack is my current obsession! Hope you enjoy!

Lydia Deetz’s first encounter with death were the mice caught in the traps under the sink. She wasn’t really supposed to go in there, but Mummy was busy in her dark room and Lydia had been very, very bored. So, she had looked at the stiff little bodies, necks trapped under thick metal wires until Mummy had come in and scolded her for breaking the rules.

Lydia’s first time seeing the doors was with Maxie. Mummy had been on the phone in her office, talking to someone about her latest photographs and Lydia had been bored. Therefore, she decided to give the small, black and white rat a bath. As his body fell still under the water, she saw a second rat appear from nowhere. It crawled along the bottom of the sink, apparently uncaring for the water until a green light appeared in the wall and he disappeared through it. Lydia ran to Mummy, her whole body tingling with a cold, excited energy but Mummy was more worried about her pet than the amazing story she had to tell. So she sobbed in her room after her mother had screamed at her and thought about what had happened. And how she could make it happen again.

The first time Lydia Deetz deliberately made the doors appear, she was in a cemetery. Mummy was taking photographs of the gravestones, leaving her daughter to make her own fun. She had entertained herself for a little while, trying to sound out the names on the graves and waving to the strange people wearing the old-fashioned clothes. But soon she had become bored and came across the injured bird. It flapped feebly in her grip as she rested it on her skirt, then harder as she twisted its neck until she heard it click and go still, just like Maxie. This time, the door was in the nearest tree, looking like an innocuous hole in the wood if not for the sickly light that shone from it. She felt the tingling sensation shudder through her as the new bird flew up and disappeared, and she lay on the cold ground, staring at the remaining body in her hands until Mummy called her to go home. She knew better than to tell her parents this time.

* * *

There was a strange man in the cemetery. He wore a stripy suit and had wild hair and moss growing over his exposed face and neck. Lydia though he was very gross looking, and that she probably shouldn’t talk to him because Mummy had warned her about taking candy from strangers. But he didn’t offer her candy – he instead told her that she hadn’t been fast enough with the cat she’d tried to create a door for today. He had run his fingers over the scratches on her arm the animal had left, and he was icy cold. As he carefully wiped her remaining tears away with his thumb, a wide grin spread across his face. He told her he could help her… if she just said his name.

* * *

Beetlejuice was there next week, just as he had promised. He had been sitting on the tallest branch of a dying oak tree, and as he saw her approach, he’d stretched his arms down to pick her up to join him. From the vantage point, he showed her the bush where her escaped cat was hidden and said he had a present for her. He’d settled her carefully down on the branch beside him before rifling through his pockets to bring out all manner of snake’s, beetles and little business cards she couldn’t read.

Eventually, he settled on his gift. It looked like one of Mummy’s big kitchen knives, but with the handle sized down for her smaller hand. It had her name engraved on the blade – L-Y-D-I-A, just like she’d practised at school.

“Mummy said I can’t use her sharp knives because I could hurt someone” she’d said, voice awed and slightly fearful as she quickly looked to she if her mother could see her. Her companion gave a dark chuckle

“Only if you don’t know what you’re doing” he said, raspy voice filled with excitement.

So he made sure she knew what she was doing. The cat had hissed and struggled, and her first cut had made it yowl and cry as red stained the dirty white fur. She’d frozen, horrified at causing it pain, but he just took her hand and showed her exactly where to cut to make the blood come faster and cat to go silent. And then they had practised on each of the three kittens until she could find that point all on her own. Her dress and pale skin were covered in blood, as she grinned at him in pride, knife still raised. He ruffled a hand through her hair, cleaning her in an instant

“That’s my girl” he told her, making her almost vibrate in excitement as the last of the kittens disappeared through the newly created door. He then showed her how to shrink down her knife into a little pendant to put around her neck and sent her on her way to her mother.

* * *

“I don’t think Mummy can see the doors” Lydia told Mr Beetlejuice, as he held down Mr Foster’s new dachshund puppy for her to run her knife down its middle. She cocked her head as the skin split and the organs spilled out onto the ground in a torrent of blood and viscera. Normally it was a sight that excited her, watching the animal fall still as she asked her friend for explanations on the workings of the heart or the lungs. Today however, she just sighed, bringing her legs towards her chest.

“Of course she can’t see them. You’re just special kiddo” he said distractedly, poking at the remains so maggots would appear in the flesh. Lydia didn’t say anything, just grabbed his arm so he would look at her. The ghost sighed, letting go of the dog to sit beside her. “What’s the matter, kid?”

She crawled onto his lap “I… what we do isn’t good? Is it?” she finally asked, looking up at him with wide eyes “I don’t think Mummy would like it… she asked me if I knew about the missing cats yesterday. And I told her no but she didn’t believe me and…. I think she’s scared of me”

He was quiet for a moment, wrapping his arms around her again and again until she was sure her body couldn’t be seen behind the layers of stripy arms “Does it really matter if the ‘rents don’t like it? You like it. I like it. I hardly think its any of their fucking business. What they don’t know, don’t hut ‘em and all that”

“But… we get told off at school when we hurt people… and I know you said that it doesn’t hurt if you do it right but I don’t think I’m doing it right. They always squeal really loudly when I cut them. And what if they see? What if I get told off? What if Mummy and Mrs Cartwright find out and tell on me or call the police?”

“Now there is your problem” Beetlejuice said, unwinding his arms from around her so she could see him again. There had been something new in his eyes over the last few visits, a softness that reminded her of how Mummy and Daddy looked at her when they come in to give her a kiss goodnight. It made her feel safe despite how monstrous he looked, made her lean into the cold of his body as he tilted her chin up to look at his bright green eyes “Do you really think I’d let you get in trouble, kid? We’re BFFFFs forever, right?” He pointed to the yarn friendship bracelet she’d given him a few weeks back, now covered in fungus and moss “Now – no more worrying on me. God – you were a lot more fun when you were four. Now you’re acting all adult and melancholy”

“No I’m not!” she replied, pushing him backwards, and stabbing her knife into his chest. The blood came out like a geyser, lifting her high into the air until she couldn’t help but laugh, and with that he distracted her into another game.

When he finally cleaned her up to send her back to her mother, she wrapped her arms tightly around his leg “You really promise” she said, with the complete faith only a small child could have.

“Cross my heart and… well… hope to live I suppose” he said “Honestly kid – I just found you. Do you really think I’m going to give you up that easily? Now – see you later scarecrow”

* * *

Mummy had invited someone over – a really stupid girl from her class who liked pink, and princesses and had hated the worms that Lydia had dug up to give to Beetlejuice later that evening. Lydia scowled as the girl walked around her bedroom, having already rejected her idea to play Ghosts or Deadly Predators before she’d even heard the rules. She wanted her gone. If she was gone, she could call Beetlejuice over and he could tell her stories about the Netherworld or they could set things on fire or they could play Predator properly, rather than the make-believe versions she had to play at school (trying to play it properly lead to Mrs Cartwright calling Mummy and Daddy into her office, whilst she’d swung her feet anxiously on one of the seats outside and picking flaked blood off her uniform with her fingernails)

She eventually settled for sitting on her bed with one of her dolls and ignoring her. She dressed the barbie in a little black and white striped dress that Daddy had gotten her and plaited her black hair and counted the seconds until Mummy had finished in her darkroom and called them for dinner.

“What sort of a name is Beetlejuice?” Jessica suddenly asked, looking up from where she had been amusing herself with a train set Lydia had forgotten she owned “You say it a lot”

“None of your business” She didn’t like it when this girl said the name. She could feel the power of it in the static around her skin and she didn’t deserve to do something like that. Beetlejuice was _hers_. Her friend. Her _best_ friend.

“Why not? Is it your boyfriend? Were you kissing him?” Jessica whispered the last bit

“Shut up!” Lydia said, voice icy cold

“My mummy says that boys only kiss pretty girls” Jessica continued “I don’t think this Beetlejuice would want to kiss you. You dress weird and act weird and you’re always getting in trouble. I don’t think that’s any way to get a boyfriend”

“Shut up! Shut up! Shut up! Stop saying his name!” She’d gotten off the bed, stomping her foot on the floor to emphasise her point

“What? Like this? Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beet…” The last word was never finished as a thin, practised line appeared in red across her throat, then the walls and the floor. Jessica’s eyes widened in shock, before they dulled and she crumpled.

Lydia stared at the body, then at her hand that still held her monogrammed blade. She could hardly remember getting it out. She dropped it to the floor, her hands shaking a little as she watched Jessica step out of her body

“I want my Mummy” the little ghost said, as she laid eyes on her corpse and harsh, tearless sobs wracked through her “I want to go home. What’s happening? I’m so cold… mummy…”

It took longer for the door to appear than with the animals, and as Jessica walked almost trance-like towards the glowing light, Lydia could swear she saw some dark figure silhouetted in the fog and the green.

“Lydia? Jessica? Is everything ok?” Mummy said as she walked into the room “Fuck. Oh my god – what have you done Lydia? What the fuck have you done?

Mummy fell to her knees in front of Lydia, grabbing her by the shoulders and shaking her violently, tears running down her cheeks “God – I knew something wasn’t right. I just never thought… never… god. How could you… fuck. Ok… Lydia sweetheart. I need you to sit in the bath, ok? Just… just sit in the bath and wash off. Fuck fuck fuck… NOW Lydia”

Lydia scampered off, running into the bathtub, curling her arms around herself and bursting into sobbing tears. Mummy was scaring her.

She sat in the bath for what seemed like forever until Mummy came back in. She seemed calmer now though her face was still pale. She knelt on the floor, and not even bothering to undress her daughter, she turned the tap on

“Oh sweetheart, my sweet little girl. I’m sorry… I didn’t mean to frighten you” The water soaked through the pale blue dress Lydia was wearing. “I just… I didn’t know what to do. But its ok – I’ve worked it out. Mummy will fix it, ok? Mummy will fix everything. I just need you to promise me you’ll be good for Daddy. Promise me, ok?”

“Mummy?” Lydia stammered, reaching her arms out. Mummy lifted her bodily out of the tub and pulled her into her arms, uncaring about the water that soaked both her and the floor

“It’s ok baby. It will all be ok”

Lydia could barely remember what happened when the police arrived. She remembered them taking Mummy away. She remembered an older lady asking her what happened and her being too scared to admit that it was her who had stabbed Jessica, in case she got into more trouble. She remembered a different lady at the police station scowl as they changed her into a dry set of clothes only to find purple bruises where Mummy had shaken her before. And more than all of that, she remembered the green eyes looking at her from the shadows of the kitchen as the officers took her away, silent and triumphant.

* * *

It was almost a week until Daddy took her back to her bedroom. There was a new carpet. It looked almost identical to the old one but she knew it was different because there wasn’t that splodge of ink in the corner where Beetlejuice had broken her pen, or the green mould under her bed that he’d been ‘growing for a special occasion’.

She called him hesitantly, and he appeared in front of her as he always did “Well done kid – first proper kill. Wish I was there to see it to be honest, but it sounded like a classic”

“They said Mummy has to go away… they think she killed Jessica”

Beetlejuice said nothing, and for the first time in their friendship, she realised that his smile wasn’t a happy one. It looked… scary. Like he was relishing in her pain somehow

“You said that you wouldn’t let me get into trouble!” she said accusingly

“And I didn’t – hardly my fault your Mummy acted like an idiot and took the blame. Though its hardly a loss – think of all the fun we’ll have with just you and me? Daddy will be at work and I’m sure I could come up with some disguise to be your official babysitter” He turned himself into a teenage girl, with curly green hair, yellow teeth and a chest that even Lydia recognised as too big “What do you think?”

“You wanted this to happen” she said quietly in realisation. Her eyes filled with tear, blurring the image of the ghost in front of her “You were there… you could have helped and…”

“Lyds?” he suddenly sounded unsure, floating closer to her. She shrugged his hand off his shoulder.

“You let Mummy go to jail…” Her despair turned to white hot anger, that the ghost reflected back at her immediately

“Oh sweetheart - don’t you dare blame me. You could have owned up. You could have told them it was you. But you didn’t. You were too scared, so you let you innocent Mummy take the blame. That is on you, kid”

“I never want to see you again! Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice – “

“Wait…”

“-Beetlejuice!”

And then, for the first time in the months since she summoned the ghost, it was completely and utterly quiet. And Lydia cried, and cried, and cried.


End file.
